Regulators slap Grab with new P9-m fine

THE Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) slapped another P9-million fine on Grab Philippines for failure to fully refund its customers more than three years after the PCC first ordered the reimbursement.

The PCC issued the new penalty on Grab in the first week of February 2023, for violating three separate commission orders requiring Grab to return a combined P25.45 million to its customers.

In 2022, the PCC told Grab to immediately release the remaining P19.3 million refund to passengers after finding the ride-hailing app’s low disbursement of the refunds from previous fines.

After reviewing the compliance reports for previous penalties, the PCC found that only 24.1 percent of the total refund has been claimed from Grab by eligible passengers as of 15 June 2021, or P6.15 million out of the total P25.45 million penalty required by the PCC to be returned to Grab users.

The ride-hailing app required additional steps for passengers to claim the refund, contributing to the low uptake. PCC advised Grab that the refund should be immediately credited via GrabPay Wallet without requiring any action from the users to claim the amount.

The antitrust agency penalized Grab a total of P63.7 million since 2018 for violations of its price and service quality commitments. It was in late 2019 when the PCC imposed on Grab the penalty to return a portion of its commissions to Grab’s passengers for violating its price monitoring commitment.

The PCC has since ordered Grab to issue refunds in the amounts of P5.05 million in November 2019, P14.15 million in December 2019, and P6.25 million in October 2020.